1st Edition
Knock-for-Knock Indemnities and the Law Contractual Limitation and Delictual Liability
This book examines contractual limitation, principles and practice through the use of knock-for-knock indemnity clauses. In using such clauses, the parties agree that for certain forms of potential liability – typically property damage, personal injury to employees, and sometimes other heads of claim such as consequential loss – any loss arising will be absorbed by the party who suffers it: "you look after your losses, I’ll look after mine." It is an apparently simple, pragmatic and neat solution to the question of who bears liability: a risk allocation model so straightforward that it was described by one experienced English judge, Honorable Mr. Justice Morison, as "crude".
A specialist contributor team of international experts, examine the origin, application and effect of these clauses in important jurisdictions, their impact in different industries such as oil & gas, shipping, construction and insurance, through the lenses of both economic and legal analyses.
The book is of use for lawyers, economists and businesspeople who draft, negotiates or manage contracts in all industries where liability is dealt with in this way. It is also of interest to students, academics, and policy makers.
Editors Preface
List of Contributors
PART I – SELECTED TOPICS
- The Development of Knock-for-Knock Clauses in the last 15 years
(Kyriaki Noussia & Hanieh Bolourian) - An Introduction to Risk Allocation in Oil and Gas Contracts from an English Law Perspective
- Contracting around Tort Defaults: the Knock-for-Knock Prinicple and Accident Costs (Gideon Parchomovsky & Endre Stavang)
- On Knock-for-Knock Clauses and Their Optimal Regulation (Henrik Lando)
- Knock-for-Knock Indemnity Provisions and Liability Insurance: Potentially Strange but Always Complicated Bedfellows (Jay R. Sever & Lauren E. Burk)
- Effect of Choice-of-Law on Knock-for-Knock Clauses
(Uisdean Vass) - Indemnity clauses in fabrication and construction contracts in Norway
- Limiting and Channeling Liability under Offshore Construction Contracts in Norway (Knut Kaasen)
- The Obligation to Insure the Contract Object as Part of a Knock-for-Knock Agreement in Norway (Erik Brannsten)
- Liability and Insurance Clauses in Contracts for Vessel Services in the Norwegian Offshore Sector - the Knock for Knock Principle (Trine-Lise Wilhelmsen)
- Contractual Risk Allocation in Upstream Oil and Gas vs. Statutory Liability Regulation: the Norwegian Situation (Kristoffer Svendsen)
- Applying Knock-for-Knock in Germany (Eckehard Volz & Anna-Sophie Waldmann)
- Knock-for-Knock under Brazilian Law (Márcio Araújo Opromolla & Felipe Boechem)
- The Implications of Litigation Post Deepwater Horizon on Knock-for-Knock Clauses in U.S. Law (Cindy Matherne Muller, Jeanne Amy & Jennifer David)
- Hold Harmless Clauses in France and Francophone Civil Law Systems (Paul Morton & Bertrand Montembault)
(Greg Gordon)
PART 2 – KNOCK-FOR-KNOCK IN SPECIFIC JURISDICTIONS
14. Lessons from the Application of Knock-for-Knock Clauses under Malaysian Law (Wan Zulhafiz Zahari)
Biography
Dr. Kristoffer Svendsen is Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger and Kristiania University College. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Tulane Center for Energy Law and an Associate Member of Aberdeen University Centre for Energy Law. Kristoffer is specialized in the interaction of petroleum law, environmental law and tort law. His research interests are conventional energy law, renewable energy law, torts and contracts. Kristoffer has been working in Brussels, Moscow, and the USA, and is admitted as an Attorney-at-law in New York and a solicitor in New South Wales.
Dr. Endre Stavang is Professor of Law at the University of Oslo and was a Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (2012-2013). He initiated the Research Group on Natural Resource Law at the University of Oslo and leads its property team. Endre’s scholarship focuses on property theory, liability regimes, environmental law, and law and economics. Stavang was a Fulbright research scholar for one year at Yale Law School and has hands on experience as an appellate court judge and an in-house oil, gas, and energy lawyer in Norway.
Dr. Greg Gordon is Professor of Law and Head of School of Law at University of Aberdeen. He previously served as Deputy Head of School and as the Co-Director for Aberdeen University Centre for Energy Law. Before joining the University of Aberdeen, Greg worked in Aberdeen and London as a solicitor specialising in litigation, primarily in the oil and gas sector. His principal teaching and research interests are in energy law (particularly upstream oil and gas law), delict/tort and commercial contracting. Greg is an editorial board member of the Stair Memorial Encyclopedia, a local committee member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
